


Deadlines

by NightsMistress



Category: Atelier Escha and Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky
Genre: F/M, post: true end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-08 23:27:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8867524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/pseuds/NightsMistress
Summary: It's the first term since Logy's return from Central City, and Escha is very far behind on her reports. Fortunately, Logy's quite experienced at all-nighters.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DivineMadness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineMadness/gifts).



> My thanks to Morbane for the beta ♥ One day I will get you to play this game.

Logy began to open the door, juggling the door handle with the books that he had purchased from Katla’s store. The door swung open, and Logy froze where he stood.

When he had left the atelier earlier that afternoon it had been in its usual state of order by force of Logy’s will. Every tool had been in its rightful place, every book put away alphabetically on the shelves, their pending deadlines written on the chalkboard in Logy’s neat, precise handwriting, and the floor swept for shavings of wood and metal. He had anticipated it becoming untidy while he was away, as Escha was a messier worker than he was, but he hadn’t anticipated this. Books were piled haphazardly on their workbench, teetering on the verge of falling, alchemical tools were scattered around the room in disarray, and his nose twitched at the smell of crushed plants and spilled reactants. At the eye of the storm was Escha, sitting at their work bench and face hidden in her arms.

For a stunned moment Logy stared at the disaster that once was their atelier. Then, once he was able to think again, even if it was he stepped inside and closed the door. He fumbled for the lock on the door before remembering that Branch Manager Grumman had never installed one in the first place. Humiliating memories of Manager Grumman coming in at the worst possible time to do a surprise inspection haunted him, and Logy pressed his back up against the door in a futile, panicked, effort to block the door should the worst happen. _What am I even doing?_ Logy asked himself. _My standing here isn’t going to achieve anything, even if he does come in._

Answers might, however, and as he stepped into the room he looked around the room to try and find some meaning in the chaos. There were no scorch marks on the ceiling, and there was no sharp, acrid smell of a poorly executed synthesis. It didn’t look like an alchemical accident, but he thought he should check to be sure. “Did something go wrong?”

“Logy…” Escha moaned, not raising her head from her arms. “Marion’s going to be _so_ mad with me…”

“Is it … about the mess here?” 

“No…” Escha sighed. “I’m _really_ far behind on my assignments.”

That didn’t sound good. In the four years that Logy had worked in Colseit, he had managed Escha’s workflow, as her enthusiasm for her work was matched only by her inability to say no to additional tasks. When he came back after his time away, he’d thought that Escha would be able to manage her own workload. _Oh no,_ he realized, reflecting back on the last three months. _She still hasn’t learned to say no to people asking favors of her._ Escha’s generosity of spirit was both her greatest strength and her biggest flaw as an alchemist.

“How far behind…?” he asked, not quite sure that he wanted to know the answer.

“I’ve got the request to synthesize a new reagent left to do. And all my reports.”

“ _All_ of them?” Logy started calculating how many reports she had outstanding. It had been a fieldwork-heavy month, and Logy typically wrote the reports for the expeditions. There had been five new synthesis tasks to complete, and two delivery tasks, so seven reports in all. The delivery reports were quick to write — they had a template for those — and while the synthesis reports were more complicated Escha was good at taking notes as she went. Further, if he remembered correctly the remaining synthesis task would only take a day.

While initially it had sounded quite daunting, Logy was cautiously optimistic that this problem was fixable so long as they concentrated their efforts to their respective strengths. _Huh,_ he thought . _Who would have thought that I’d be the optimist? Escha must have rubbed off on me._

“Escha,” he said. “She’s not going to yell at you, because everything’s going to get done.”

“But - Logy, the synthesis is a complicated one! I can’t do it and write the reports, because I’ll have to keep an eye on it. And it’s going to take a full night to finish.”

“We have a day,” Logy pointed out. “If you set your synthesis up now, it should be finished by the time our assignments are due.”

“Yes…” Escha said slowly. “But what do I say about the reports…?”

“They’ll be done,” Logy said firmly. 

Escha frowned at him. Then her expression shifted to concern, the corners of her mouth turning down and her eyes going wide as realization dawned. “You mean — you’ll — oh no, I couldn’t ask that of you! You’ve got your own reports to do!” As she spoke, her hands flew up to gesture frantically. 

It was so very _Escha_ a response that Logy couldn’t help but laugh. Escha’s hands fell to her sides. She looked mildly affronted at his laughter, and so Logy explained, “It’s fine. Really. I finished all of my reports the other day. Besides,” and he smiled, “what kind of partner would I be if I let you do an all-nighter by yourself?”

“Okay. “ Then Escha brightened. She clapped her hands together in delight. “It’ll be like a sleepover!”

 _She recovered quickly,_ Logy noted, bemused. “I suppose …” he said, trying to sound stern. _It’s unfair for her to look like that,_ he thought, rueful at how weak he was to Escha’s obvious happiness. “But remember, we’re meant to be working. It’s not meant to be for fun.”

“Oh Logy,” Escha sighed, shaking her head. “We can work hard and have fun. Ooh, I wonder if I can get snacks from Clone!”

Logy put his hand up to stop her before she got too ahead of herself. “Before we do any of that … maybe we should get permission from Marion to be here after hours?”

Escha clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh yes, of course!” she said hurriedly. “But —” and she looked at the workbench in dismay. “— She’s going to be mad about the mess, isn’t she?”

“I think it’ll be all right.” Marion was the nicest boss he’d ever worked for, and he was confident that she didn’t want them to fail to complete their assigned tasks. It wasn’t just because an incomplete log would reflect badly on her as well, but also because she genuinely want them to succeed. He thought that he could persuade Marion that an all-nighter was necessary just this once. He looked down at the workbench and grimaced. “Though … maybe I should talk to her and you clean up in here?

“Got it!” Escha said emphatically, her fist going up in determination. “Is that why you were blocking the door just before? In case we get inspected?”

“Yeah.” Logy laughed ruefully. “I don’t really know what I was thinking. It wouldn’t stop Branch Manager Grumman for long, and it’d just look even more suspicious. Even if it did give you some time to look busy so he wouldn’t yell at you, at least.”

“Oh, Logy.” She pressed her hand to her chest and smiled at him, warm and fond, as if he was her most favorite person in the world. “That’s so sweet of you.”

Logy could feel the flush rising up the back of his neck, and ducked his head so as to hide his blush. He cleared his throat twice, awkwardly, and put his hands into his pockets. “Uh, well … you know. I should — you know, I should go. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” 

Once outside the atelier, he covered his face with his hands. _Come on, Logy, get it together,_ he told himself sternly. _You’ve got work to do!_

When his ears no longer burned and his face no longer felt hot, he took a breath to steady himself and then set off downstairs to Marion’s office.

Logy paused outside Marion’s office and took a moment to assess what situation he was about to enter. It looked like it usually did around deadlines: covered with requisition documents, reports to and from Central Command, and worryingly official documents proudly stamped with Central’s logo. Nothing good ever came of those documents, and Logy could appreciate why Marion looked so frazzled.

Logy cleared his throat and waited for her to look up from the report she was reading. When she didn’t, he rapped on the wooden frame twice. Marion’s head snapped up and she blinked owlishly at Logy from behind her glasses.

“Sorry to disturb you,” Logy said. “It’s about tomorrow’s deadline. We were wondering if we could have permission to work overtime tonight to finish off some housekeeping tasks. We’re behind at the moment, but everything is under control.” 

“Hm,” Marion said once he was done. “I suspect it’s less ‘we’ and more ‘one person’.”

“Well …” Logy rubbed the back of his head. He couldn’t deny it, and he wouldn’t insult Marion by trying. “It’s not Escha’s fault. We had a lot of fieldwork this term, and that always throws our schedule out.”

“That doesn’t stop you turning your reports in,” Marion pointed out.

“It’s true, mine are all in,” Logy conceded. “But Escha’s really been working hard this term and doing all the heavy lifting in terms of our synthesis. We should have everything done by this time tomorrow though.”

“Well, so long as you kids have it in hand, I have no problems with it.”

Logy exhaled sharply. He hadn’t even noticed that he had been holding his breath in anticipation of Marion saying no. It would have been difficult for both of them had Marion said no; he could have brought the reports home with him to work on after hours, but Escha’s cauldron was too bulky and heavy to move easily.

“Just don’t make it a habit,” Marion added. “You shouldn’t be spending the best years of your life working. You two are young! Don’t waste your life at work like me!”

Discretion was the better part of valor when it came to Marion’s regular complaints about being single and over thirty. He smiled politely, nodded, and said, “Thanks. We won’t make it a habit.”

“And when you turn everything in, feel free to go home for the rest of the day. I’ll square it away with Grumman.”

“Really?” Logy said. “Wow. Thank you. I know that won’t be easy to sort out.”

Marion waved her hand. “It’s fine. That’s my job, to look out for you guys.”

“Thanks. We won’t let you down.”

He headed back up the stairs and knocked sharply on the door twice. “I’m coming in,” he called before pushing the door open.

In the short space of time that he’d been gone, Escha had made significant inroads in tidying up their atelier. She had reshelved the books and sorted out the alchemical ingredients, leaving only Logy’s alchemical tools to be placed in their rightful places. She was looking at them with some consternation, and the relief on her face when she saw Logy was palpable.

“Oh, Logy! Thank goodness you’re back. Do you remember where these go?”

Logy collected the long tools that he used for his own alchemy into the crook of his arm and started to place them back on their hooks. “Why were they down in the first place?”

Escha laughed sheepishly. “Oh, that. When I didn’t know what to do about all the outstanding assignments, I asked myself ‘What would Logy do right now’! But it sounded silly until I was actually holding them. Then I knew exactly what to do: ask for your help.”

“Well, if it helps then it helps, but I don’t think I would have asked for my help,” Logy said, shaking his head ruefully. “I’ve only really started asking for help since I met you.”

“That might have been true before, but it’s not the Logy I know.”

 _I suppose she’s right,_ Logy mused. _I think I might ask for help now, if it was from Escha._

“As for why the tools,” Escha continued. “I needed the tools to pretend to _be_ you. I can speak like you do, but it’s just not the same without the tools!”

For a moment, Logy thought he had been imagining what she had said. He put his hand up before letting it fall to his side. “Um. I’m glad I didn’t see that.”

Escha smiled sunnily. “Aw, but it’s fun! You can pretend to be me if you like. I’ll even lend you my tail.” To emphasize her point, her tail swung cheerfully from side to side. Logy was reminded all over again that Escha willingly attached a fluffy object to her which was animated by utterly inscrutable means. She reached behind her to the belt loop at her waist. “I’ll unclip it now if you like!”

“Uh … I think I’ll pass,” he said. “Also, you should know that Marion said that if we finished everything off early, we could have the rest of tomorrow off.”

Escha immediately gave up fiddling with her belt. “Really?” she said in delight. “That’s so nice of her! We’d better not let her down! Do we have a plan yet?”

It was touching how Escha immediately turned to Logy for a plan, even if he wasn’t sure that he had really earned her confidence in that regard. “I might have one,” he said carefully. “How often does your synthesis need to be checked?”

“Hmm.” Escha frowned. “Every couple of hours or so? Just to make sure it’s not gonna blow up or anything.” 

Logy scratched his chin and did some mental arithmetic. If Escha started her synthesis now, then they could have a break for dinner and to collect their things for the evening, and then settle in for the evening. In his experience half of the reagents they were going to be using were most reactive after a few hours, and then were quite stable for several hours. The more he thought about it, the more that timetable appealed to his sense of organization. “If you set it up now, we can break for dinner. Then after that we can alternate who checks on it.”

“But don’t you have reports to write? You should focus on those and I’ll focus on the synthesis.”

“No, this is the best option. You need to nap so that if I have to wake you up, you’re able to fix the synthesis.”

“I see, I see!” Escha said, nodding emphatically. “So you’ll wake me up if something goes wrong while you’re watching.”

“That’s right. So what do you think?”

“I think it’s great!” Escha beamed. “Let’s get everything done and show Marion she was right to believe in us!”

Logy couldn’t help but smile at her enthusiasm. _I really don’t know how she recovers so quickly,_ he wondered as he watched her bounce around collecting her synthesis ingredients and preparing her cauldron for their alchemical experiment.

“I’ll go get my stuff for tonight,” he suggested as Escha poured synthesis solution into her cauldron. “I shouldn’t be too long.”

Escha hummed in response, which Logy took as a sign that she had heard him but was too focused on her next task to respond in words. He nodded and waved on his way out, as while he didn’t want to break her concentration he thought it would be rude to just simply walk out the door.

Having collected his sleeping roll from where he kept it in his dormitory room, Logy made his way back upstairs to the atelier. He passed Marion in the corridor and nodded at her from the corridor; she looked at the sleeping roll and frowned, before waving him on and upwards.

“I’m coming in!” he called at the closed door to their atelier, to no response. He didn’t expect one as Escha was almost impossible to distract once she was wrapped up in her alchemy. However, after years of working in volatile environments, Logy now had an almost unshakeable habit of announcing his appearance before entering any workplace. He waited a moment to be certain that it was safe to enter, and then pushed the door open.

From the sleeping roll on the floor, leaning against Logy’s equipment at the far end of the room, it looked like Clone had also been around at some point to bring Escha her things for the evening. The workbench, previously cleared of all things, was now set up for report writing: a small sheaf of paper, an inkwell filled with ink, his fountain pen, and a collection of pages that appeared to have been their working notes from the last term. Logy sighed at the sight, because the whole point of him working late with Escha was to free her up to focus entirely on her synthesis. 

Escha was stirring her cauldron, her expression dreamily abstracted. It was deceptive; Escha always looked like that when she was doing a complex synthesis, as if she was synthesizing everything around her into her alchemy and leaving nothing for less important things like interacting with the outside world. Logy waved out of politeness, and drew up a chair at their workbench near the stack of paper and inkwell. He shuffled through the notes, reading them quickly to refresh his memory as he grouped them into individual reports. That done, he dipped his pen into the inkwell and began to write.

The process of assembling their hurried, scribbled, and often cryptic notes into the formal language that Central City expected from its reports was soothing in its familiarity. Equally soothing was Escha’s tuneless humming as she stirred her cauldron and the peculiar, almost sharp smell as the plant cuttings dissolved into the synthesis solution. He wrote brief synopses of why the people of Colseit had requested certain items and how those requests fell into Escha and Logy’s ambit as civil servants, descriptions of the items synthesized, the cost incurred in their creation by the R & D Division, and the reward provided in exchange. It was an art form, reducing the complex intangible benefits of their work into something cold and measurable for Central Command to understand and consume. 

“I’m going to nap for a bit!” Escha said at some point. Logy nodded absently as he considered the best way to phrase a particular sentence in order to explain that the recent increase in production of sweets in their atelier was in order to pay the homunculi for their work. It seemed absurd when he thought about it, even as he finally settled on stating that it was an interdepartmental transfer of supplies.

He careful excised the intangible — the relief on Faul’s face when Escha and Logy had delivered enough plant nutrients to keep the orchard growing until more fertilizer could be synthesized, the gratitude of the field workers in the Dragon’s Graveyard when Escha and Logy delivered supplies, the glee of the people of Colseit whenever Duke ran one of his eating competitions thanks to supplies Escha and Logy had sourced for him — and kept his reports to the facts. Alchemists Malier and Fiscario had delivered plant nutrients to the Malier apple orchard, which would increase the yield of the next harvest by ten percent; the field workers had been resupplied so that they could further their expedition; the town of Colseit would not require a relief shipment of staples this season.

He reduced three months of hard work to two-page reports, pinning their easy, playful camaraderie down within a cage of ink and impersonal language. At the heart of Escha’s alchemy was a messy, joyful delight in the ability to help others; what Central Command required was a coolly clinical dissection of the worth of keeping two alchemists stationed at Colseit. It was no wonder Escha had struggled with these reports.

Logy struggled with it more than he had used to. When he had lived in Central, focused solely on building his cutting-edge dreadnaught, he could dash out the reports in the brief moments he carved out between experiments and sleep. Now that he had friendships in his life, now that Escha was in his life, it was much harder to be dispassionate and coldly pragmatic about the results of his alchemy. Escha had introduced him to the importance of people and relationships to his alchemy. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

All seven reports done, Logy wiped clean the nib of his fountain pen. The sun had gone down while he had been writing, and the moon was high in the night sky. It was later than he thought, and he leaned back in his chair with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose against an incipient headache as he mentally assessed his workflow. Rather than nap now, as he had planned, he should really make some headway into the report for Escha’s final synthesis.

“You’re done?” Escha chirped from her cauldron. At some point she had drawn the cover over it, and was now using the cover as a writing desk. “I’m almost finished with my notes from the first stage of the synthesis. I didn’t expect you to write the reports so quickly!”

“I’m not quite done,” Logy pointed out. “I haven’t started writing the report for your current synthesis.”

“I can read out the results and you can start analyzing them,” Escha suggested. “That way if everything does work you’ll be able to say why.”

“That’s a good idea,” Logy said. He found a clean sheet of paper and dipped his pen into the inkwell. “I’m ready when you are.”

Escha started to read out sequences of numbers, with long pauses between them as she looked up various alchemical coefficients from the cheat sheet Logy had prepared some months ago for her. Logy closed his eyes to concentrate on transcribing the numbers correctly, a task that became increasingly more difficult. Escha’s voice was quiet and steady when she did speak, her words indistinct and muffled, until he heard nothing at all.

“Logy? Logy!” 

Logy snapped awake and looked around the room. At some point he had dropped his pen, leaving an ink blotch on the page that fortunately didn’t obscure the numbers he’d written down earlier. “What?” he mumbled, feeling very disoriented.

“You fell asleep,” Escha said. “Why don’t we take a break and you can continue working on the report later. We’re _both_ due a nap now, anyway.”

He stretched out the kinks in his back. “That’s a good idea. I’ll be more clear-headed after a nap.” He stood up and shrugged off his jacket to hang on his vacated chair. Escha stacked her notes not he table where he had been sitting, smiling up at him as she did so.

“There you go,” she said cheerfully. “That should be everything for now.”

“Thanks.” He extinguished the lantern on the workbench, leaving only the light on his side of the atelier. 

The two of them prepared their sleeping rolls with the ease of long practice, arranging them to lie side by side with Escha closer to her cauldron. Escha yawned as she pulled off her loafers and stockings, and Logy yawned in response.

“Good night, Escha,” he said as he dimmed the lights.

“Good night, Logy,” she said.

Logy woke to the fingers of dawn reaching in through the window. He sat up with a start when he realized what had happened: Escha had let him sleep late. He could see her, sleeping on her side with her pink hair sleep-tangled around her face and caught in her open mouth. He noted ruefully that she was drooling onto her sleeping roll, and was pretty sure he could guess what she was dreaming about even before she mumbled something about apple pie ice cream. 

“You were supposed to wake me,” he said, shaking his head at Escha. She didn’t wake at that, or when he pulled his shoes on and stood up. From here, he could see a set of papers on their workbench that had not been there the previous night. The papers were covered with Escha’s handwriting and Logy sighed. No wonder she was sleeping heavily now, if she had been doing his job as well as her own.

He picked up the report, scrubbing at his face with the heel to force himself to wake up faster, and read through it. The first thing he noticed was how different their reporting style was: Logy’s reports were a cool dissection of their work, while Escha’s bubbled and rambled. In this report, Escha jumped from topic to topic, with one memorable paragraph talking about her lunch, ingredient order for a future alchemical experiment, and the color of the current experiment. It made for disjointed reading. 

That said, he found himself drawn to one paragraph of theorizing about different ingredients for next time. _Huh._ Logy scratched his chin thoughtfully. _I wouldn’t have thought to try tree sap to thicken the reagent. I wonder what’d happen if we did…_ He reached for his alchemy notebook on the table and made a quick note about that for when they had a free moment to consider it.

Escha’s report ended before detailing the results of her synthesis. Logy looked at the time and after a series of sleep-slowed calculations thought that enough time would have passed that the synthesis would have finished. He scrubbed at his face again, and removed the cover over the cauldron.

The synthesis solution in the cauldron was clear and smelled faintly sharp. That boded well for a successful synthesis. He stripped the glove from his left hand and stuck his index finger into the synthesis solution. It was cool to the touch, and as he pulled his hand away a thick fluid clung to the pad of his finger. He rubbed his finger against his thumb and was satisfied by the viscosity of the solution. He then sniffed his finger and blinked at how strongly astringent it was. _Escha does good work,_ he thought he spooned the reagent into a vial, labelling it and stoppering it closed. As he held the vial to the light, the reagent glowed a faint yellow.

Logy put the vial on the shelf with the other reagents, and then sat back at their work bench to finish the report. He didn’t try to mimic Escha’s breezy style, instead reporting the facts in brief, direct sentences. He noted that the synthesis had been a success, that it luminesced in direct sunlight, and that on a preliminary analysis it appeared quite potent. That done, he signed off on the report on behalf of both of them and craned his head to see if Escha had woken up. She hadn’t, though she had shifted from sleeping on her side to her back. Logy smiled at that, as past experience suggested that this was a prelude to Escha slowly waking up over the next half hour. 

He slipped out the door and down the stairs, very conscious of how his shoes scuffed against the stairs, the creak of the floorboards, and the squeak of the door hinge to Marion’s office. Their headquarters was disturbingly quiet in the early morning. He left his reports on her desk, and wondered, for not the first time, how she would ever even find them in amongst the sea of other reports. She always managed it, though, so he probably shouldn’t question her organization skills. 

That done he went back upstairs to wake Escha so that they could both go home.

Escha had thrown her arm across her face but had made no further progress towards waking up. Logy laughed as he gently shook her awake. “Come on, Escha,” he urged as she grumbled sleepily. “It’ll be better to sleep in a bed.”

She opened her eyes and smiled hazily at him. “Logy…?” She cleared her throat and blinked heavily as she looked around the room. “Oh … that’s right. We’re in the atelier. We were working late.”

“That’s right,” Logy said. “I’ve just left the last report on Marion’s desk so we can go home.”

Escha beamed. “Yes! We have today off, don’t we!” She sat up and started to finger-comb her hair into submission. “Ooh, I could have a nap, and then help Clone with the orchard, and maybe make some apple tarts for later! Or apple fritters! Or both!”

“Let’s just get out of here,” Logy suggested as he handed Escha’s loafers to her. She slipped her shoes on while Logy rolled up their sleeping rolls and stacked them at the back of the atelier. “You can decide what you’re doing after a nap.”

Escha’s eyes were startlingly green in the early morning light, Logy noticed, and all the more luminescent when she smiled at him. “You’re right. Let’s go!” She bounded down the stairs, seemingly uncaring of how loud her footsteps were. Logy glanced around their atelier one last time before closing and locking the door behind him as he left.

Escha was waiting outside for him. “It was really quiet in there, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing.”

It was too early in the day for the shopkeepers to have set up their stores for the morning, and the street leading from their headquarters to the dormitory was empty of people. The absence of people made it easier for Logy to take Escha’s hand in his. Escha’s hand fitted neatly into his own, warm and work-callused, and Logy was acutely aware of his own hand. Should he have taken his glove off? Was he holding on too tightly to her hand? Was his hand sweaty? This wasn’t the first time that they had held hands but it was still new enough that he couldn’t stop worrying about it. _Stop it,_ he told himself. _Escha would say something if it was gross._

The walk wasn’t a long one and it ended far too soon for Logy. They stopped outside the stone steps that led up to the door to the dormitory.

“Here we are.” Logy let go of Escha’s hand reluctantly.

“Yup.” 

The two of them stood there a moment, Escha smiling shyly and Logy returning the smile, and Logy was unable to look away from her. It seemed too impersonal to wish Escha good night. From the angle of her chin she was thinking about something, trying to steel her courage up to do something, but he wasn’t sure what it was. What he wanted to do was to kiss her goodnight, but he wasn’t sure she would want to be kissed when anyone could see it.

Fortunately, Escha was less plagued by doubts. She rose up on the balls of her feet, resting her hands lightly on Logy’s shoulders for balance, and kissed Logy briefly. Logy, delighted by her daring, returned the kiss even as he felt his face heat up at the thought of someone watching them doing this. They were, after all, outside the civil servant dormitory early in the morning, and Solle made a habit of coming in to work long before everyone else… She broke away from Logy and put the heels of her feet back down on the ground. Her face was flushed and to Logy’s mortification she started giggling. “I didn’t know you blushed so easily! I always thought it was me that blushed easily but it’s really you!”

“You know you’re blushing right now, right?” Logy pointed out.

Escha covered her face with her hands “I thought you wouldn’t notice!”

 _How would I not notice…?_ It was a question that Logy decided didn’t need an answer. He shook his head. “We make a pair, don’t we?”

“That’s what Marion has been saying since we started.”

“No, that — never mind.” Logy decided he’d embarrassed himself enough today without explaining what he truly meant. Besides, he wasn’t sure that Escha was necessarily wrong on that front. They really were very complementary. “You’re right. Good morning, Escha.”

Her smile was radiant as she said, “Good morning, Logy.” 

He watched as she headed inside the women’s dormitory, then made his way up to his room. The cat he fed daily was already at the window sill, and it started mewing for attention as he opened the door. “Yes, I know. I’m sorry,” Logy said to the cat as he put food into the bowl he kept for it. “I was …” Working late seemed to be the wrong description. He’d been working hard, of course, but it had been fun as well. He placed the bowl at the window sill and backed away to give the cat space to eat its contents.

“I was on a date,” he said finally, laughing a little at himself.


End file.
